21

Blindfold to Memmert

'HERE she comes,' said Davies. It was nine
o'clock on the next day, 22nd October, and we were
on deck waiting for the arrival of the steamer
from Norddeich. There was no change in the
weather--still the same stringent cold, with a
high barometer, and only fickle flaws of air; but
the morning was gloriously clear, except for a
wreath or two of mist curling like smoke from the
sea, and an attenuated belt of opaque fog on the
northern horizon. The harbour lay open before us,
and very commodious and civilized it looked,
enclosed between two long piers which ran quite
half a mile out from the land to the road-stead
(Riff-Gat by name) where we lay. A stranger might
have taken it for a deep and spacious haven; but
this, of course, was an illusion, due to the high
water. Davies knew that three-quarters of it was
mud, the remainder being a dredged-out channel
along the western pier. A couple of tugs, a
dredger, and a ferry packet with steam up, were
moored on that side--a small stack of galliots on
the other. Beyond these was another vessel, a
galliot in build, but radiant as a queen among
sluts; her varnished sides and spars flashing
orange in the sun. These, and her snow-white
sail-covers and the twinkle of brass and
gun-metal, proclaimed her to be a yacht. I had
already studied her through the glasses and read
on her stern Medusa. A couple of
sailors were swabbing her decks; you could hear
the slush of the water and the scratching of the
deck-brooms. 'They can see us anyway,'
Davies had said.

For that matter all the world could see
us--certainly the incoming steamer must; for we
lay as near to the pier as safety permitted,
abreast of the berth she would occupy, as we knew
by a gangway and a knot of sailors.

A packet boat, not bigger than a big tug, was
approaching from the south.

'Remember, we're not supposed to know he's
coming,' I said; 'let's go below.' Besides the
skylight, our 'coach-house' cabin top had little
oblong side windows. We wiped clean those on the
port side and watched events from them, kneeling
on the sofa.

The steamer backed her paddles, flinging out a
wash that set us rolling to our scuppers. There
seemed to be very few passengers aboard, but all
of them were gazing at the Dulcibella
while the packet was warped alongside. On the
forward deck there were some market-women with
baskets, a postman, and a weedy youth who might be
an hotel waiter; on the after-deck, standing close
together, were two men in ulsters and soft felt
hats.

'There he is!' said Davies, in a tense whisper;
'the tall one.' But the tall one turned abruptly
as Davies spoke and strode away behind the
deck-house, leaving me just a lightning impression
of a grey beard and a steep tanned forehead,
behind a cloud of cigar smoke. It was perverse of
me, but, to tell the truth, I hardly missed him,
so occupied was I by the short one, who remained
leaning on the rail, thoughtfully contemplating
the Dulcibella through gold-rimmed
pince-nez: a sallow, wizened old fellow,
beetlebrowed, with a bush of grizzled moustache
and a jet-black tuft of beard on his chin. The
most remarkable feature was the nose, which was
broad and flat, merging almost imperceptibly in
the wrinkled cheeks. Lightly beaked at the nether
extremity, it drooped towards an enormous cigar
which was pointing at us like a gun just
discharged. He looked wise as Satan, and you
would say he was smiling inwardly.

'Who's that?' I whispered to Davies. (There
was no need to talk in whispers, but we did so
instinctively.)

Some parcels and mail-bags had been thrown up,
and the weedy waiter and two market-women had gone
up the gangway, which was now being hauled up, and
were standing on the quay. I think one or two
other persons had first come aboard unnoticed by
us, but at the last moment a man we had not seen
before jumped down to the forward deck. 'Grimm!'
we both ejaculated at once.

The steamer whistled sharply, circled backwards
into the road-stead, and then steamed away. The
pier soon hid her, but her smoke showed she was
steering towards the North Sea.

'What does this mean?' I asked.

'There must be some other quay to stop at
nearer the town,' said Davies. 'Let's go ashore
and get your letters.'

We had made a long and painful toilette that
morning, and felt quite shy of one another as we
sculled towards the pier, in much-creased blue
suits, conventional collars, and brown boots. It
was the first time for two years that I had seen
Davies in anything approaching a respectable garb;
but a fashionable watering-place, even in the dead
season, exacts respect; and, besides, we had
friends to visit.

We tied up the dinghy to an iron ladder, and on
the pier found our inquisitor of the night before
smoking in the doorway of a shed marked 'Harbour
Master'. After some civilities we inquired about
the steamer. The answer was that it was Saturday,
and she had, therefore, gone on to Juist. Did we
want a good hotel? The 'Vier Jahreszeiten' was
still open, etc.

'Juist, by Jove!' said Davies, as we walked on.
'Why are those three going to Juist?'

'I should have thought it was pretty clear.
They're on their way to Memmert.'

Davies agreed, and we both looked longingly
westward at a straw-coloured streak on the sea.

And find her we did soon after, the outermost
of the stack of galliots, on the farther side of
the harbour. Two men, whose faces we took a good
look at, were sitting on her hatch, mending a
sail.

Flooded with sun, yet still as the grave, the
town was like a dead butterfly for whom the
healing rays had come too late. We crossed some
deserted public gardens commanded by a gorgeous
casino, its porticos heaped with chairs and
tables; so past kiosques and
cafés, great white hotels with
boarded windows, bazaars and booths, and all the
stale lees of vulgar frivolity, to the
post-office, which at least was alive. I received
a packet of letters and purchased a local
time-table, from which we learned that the steamer
sailed daily to Borkum via Norderney,
touching three times a week at Juist (weather
permitting). On the return journey to-day it was
due at Norderney at 7.30 p.m. Then I inquired the
way to the 'Vier Jahreszeiten'. 'For whatever
your principles,

Davies,' I said, 'we are going to have the best
breakfast money can buy! We've got the whole day
before us.'

The 'Four Seasons' Hotel was on the esplanade
facing the northern beach. Living up to its name,
it announced on an illuminated sign-board,
'Inclusive terms for winter visitors; special
attention to invalids, etc.' Here in a great glass
restaurant, with the unruffled blue of ocean
spread out before us, we ate the king of
breakfasts, dismissed the waiter, and over long
and fragrant Havanas examined my mail at leisure.

'What a waste of good diplomacy!' was my first
thought, for nothing had been tampered with, so
far as we could judge from the minutest scrutiny,
directed, of course, in particular to the franked
official letters (for to my surprise there were
two) from Whitehall.

The first in order of date (6th Oct.) ran:
'Dear Carruthers.--Take another week by all
means.--Yours, etc.'

The second (marked 'urgent') had been sent to
my home address and forwarded. It was dated 15th
October, and cancelled the previous letter,
requesting me to return to London without
delay--'I am sorry to abridge your holiday, but we
are very busy, and, at present,
short-handed.--Yours, etc.' There was a dry
postscript to the effect that another time I was
to be good enough to leave more regular and
definite information as to my whereabouts when
absent.

'I'm afraid I never got this!' I said, handing
it to Davies.

'You won't go, will you?' said he, looking,
nevertheless, with unconcealed awe at the great
man's handwriting under the haughty official
crest. Meanwhile I discovered an endorsement on a
corner of the envelope: 'Don't worry; it's only
the chief's fuss.--M--' I promptly tore up the
envelope. There are domestic mysteries which it
would be indecent and disloyal to reveal, even to
one's best friend. The rest of my letters need no
remark; I smiled over some and blushed over
others--all were voices from a life which was
infinitely far away. Davies, meanwhile, was deep
in the foreign intelligence of a newspaper,
spelling it out line by line, and referring
impatiently to me for the meaning of words.

'Hullo!' he said, suddenly; 'same old game!
Hear that siren?' A curtain of fog had grown on
the northern horizon and was drawing shorewards
slowly but surely.

'It doesn't matter, does it?' I said.

'Well, we must get back to the yacht. We can't
leave her alone in the fog.'

There was some marketing to be done on the way
back, and in the course of looking for the shops
we wanted we came on the Schwannallée and
noted its position. Before we reached the harbour
the fog was on us, charging up the streets in
dense masses. Happily a tramline led right up to
the pier-head, or we should have lost our way and
wasted time, which, in the event, was of priceless
value. Presently we stumbled up against the
Harbour Office, which was our landmark for the
steps where we had tied up the dinghy. The same
official appeared and good-naturedly held the
painter while we handed in our parcels. He wanted
to know why we had left the flesh-pots of the
'Vier Jahreszeiten'. To look after our yacht, of
course. There was no need, he objected; there
would be no traffic moving while the fog lasted,
and the fog, having come on at that hour, had come
to stay. If it did clear he would keep an eye on
the yacht for us. We thanked him, but thought we
would go aboard.

'You'll have a job to find her now,' he said.

The distance was eighty yards at the most, but
we had to use a scientific method, the same one,
in fact, that Davies had used last night in the
approach to the eastern pier.

'Row straight out at right angles to the pier,'
he said now. I did so, Davies sounding with his
scull between the strokes. He found the bottom
after twenty yards, that being the width of the
dredged-out channel at this point. Then we turned
to the right, and moved gently forward, keeping
touch with the edge of the mud-bank (for all the
world like blind men tapping along a kerbstone)
and taking short excursions from it, till the
Dulcibella hove in view. 'That's
partly luck,' Davies .commented; 'we ought to have
had the compass as well.'

We exchanged shouts with the man on the pier to
show we had arrived.

'It's very good practice, that sort of thing,'
said Davies, when we had disembarked.

'You've got a sixth sense,' I observed. 'How
far could you go like that?'

'Don't know. Let's have another try. I can't
sit still all day. Let's explore this channel.'

'Why not go to Memmert?' I said, in
fun.

'To Memmert?' said Davies, slowly; 'by Jove!
that's an idea!'

'Good Heavens, man! I was joking. Why, it's
ten mortal miles.'

'More,' said Davies, absently. 'It's not so
much the distance--what's the time? Ten fifteen;
quarter ebb--What am I talking about? We made our
plans last night.'

But seeing him, to my amazement, serious, I was
stung by the splendour of the idea I had awakened.
Confidence in his skill was second nature to me.
I swept straight on to the logic of the thing, the
greatness, the completeness of the opportunity, if
by a miracle it could be seized and used.
Something was going on at Memmert to-day; our men
had gone there; here were we, ten miles away, in a
smothering, blinding fog. It was known we were
here--Dollmann and Grimm knew it; the crew of the
Medusa knew it; the crew of the
Kormoran knew it; the man on the
pier, whether he cared or not, knew it. But none
of them knew Davies as I knew him. Would anyone
dream for an instant--?

'Stop a second,' said Davies; 'give me two
minutes.' He whipped out the German chart. 'Where
exactly should we go?' ('Exactly!' The word
tickled me hugely.)

'To the depot, of course; it's our only
chance.'

'Listen then--there are two routes: the outside
one by the open sea, right round Juist, and
doubling south--the simplest, but the longest;
the depot's at the south point of Memmert, and
Memmert's nearly two miles long.'
[See Chart B]

'How far would that way be?'

'Sixteen miles good. And we should have to row
in a breaking swell most of the way, close to
land.'

'Out of the question; it's too public, too, if
it clears. The steamer went that way, and will
come back that way. We must go inside over the
sands. Am I dreaming, though? Can you possibly
find the way?'

'I shouldn't wonder. But I don't believe you
see the hitch. It's the time and the
falling tide. High water was about 8.15: it's
now 10.15, and all those sands are drying off. We
must cross the See-Gat and strike that boomed
channel, the Memmert Balje; strike it, freeze on
to it--can't cut off an inch--and pass that
"watershed" you see there before it's
too late. It's an infernally
bad one, I can see. Not even a dinghy will
cross it for an hour each side of low water.'

'Well, how far is the "watershed"?'

'Good Lord! What are we talking for? Change,
man, change! Talk while we're changing.' (He
began flinging off his shore clothes, and I did
the same.) 'It's at least five miles to the end of
it; six, allowing for bends; hour and a half hard
pulling; two, allowing for checks. Are you fit?
You'll have to pull the most. Then there are six
or seven more miles--easier ones. And then--What
are we to do when we get there?'

'Leave that to me,' I said. 'You get me
there.'

'Supposing it clears?'

'After we get there? Bad; but we must risk
that. If it clears on the way there it doesn't
matter by this route; we shall be miles from
land.'

'What about getting back?'

'We shall have a rising tide, anyway. If the
fog lasts--can you manage in a fog and
dark?'

'The dark makes it no more difficult, if we've
a light to see the compass and chart by. You trim
the binnacle lamp--no, the riding-light. Now give
me the scissors, and don't speak a word for ten
minutes. Meanwhile, think it out, and load the
dinghy--(by Jove! though, don't make a
sound)--some grub and whisky, the boat-compass,
lead, riding-light, matches, small
boat-hook, grapnel and line.'

'Foghorn?'

'Yes, and the whistle too.'

'A gun?'

'What for?'

'We're after ducks.'

'All right. And muffle the rowlocks with
cotton-waste.'

I left Davies absorbed in the charts, and
softly went about my own functions. In ten
minutes he was on the ladder, beckoning.

'I've done,' he whispered. 'Now shall
we go?'

'I've thought it out. Yes,' I answered.

This was only roughly true, for I could not
have stated in words all the pros and cons that I
had balanced. It was an impulse that drove me
forward; but an impulse founded on reason, with
just a tinge, perhaps, of superstition; for the
quest had begun in a fog and might fitly end in
one.

It was twenty-five minutes to eleven when we
noiselessly pushed off. 'Let her drift,'
whispered Davies, 'the ebb'll carry her past the
pier.'

We slid by the Dulcibella, and she
disappeared. Then we sat without speech or
movement for about five minutes, while the gurgle
of tide through piles approached and passed. The
dinghy appeared to be motionless, just as a
balloon in the clouds may appear to its occupants
to be motionless, though urged by a current of
air. In reality we were driving out of the
Riff-Gat into the See-Gat. The dinghy swayed to a
light swell.

'Now, pull,' said Davies, under his breath;
'keep it long and steady, above all steady--both
arms with equal force.'

I was on the bow-thwart; he
vis-à-vis to me on the stern seat,
his left hand behind him on the tiller, his right
forefinger on a small square of paper which lay on
his knees; this was a section cut out from the big
German chart.
[See Chart B]
On the midship-thwart
between us lay the compass and a watch. Between
these three objects--compass, watch, and
chart--his eyes darted constantly, never looking
up or out, save occasionally for a sharp glance
over the side at the flying bubbles, to see if I
was sustaining a regular speed. My duty was to be
his automaton, the human equivalent of a marine
engine whose revolutions can be counted and used
as data by the navigator. My arms must be regular
as twin pistons; the energy that drove them as
controllable as steam. It was a hard ideal to
reach, for the complex mortal tends to rely on all
the senses God has given him, so unfitting himself
for mechanical exactitude when a sense (eyesight,
in my case) fails him. At first it was constantly
'left' or 'right' from Davies, accompanied by a
bubbling from the rudder.

'This won't do, too much helm,' said Davies,
without looking up. 'Keep your stroke, but listen
to me. Can you see the compass card?'

'When I come forward.'

'Take your time, and don't get flurried, but
each time you come forward have a good look at it.
The course is sou'-west half-west. You take the
opposite, north-east half-east, and keep her
stern on that. It'll be rough, but it'll
save some helm, and give me a hand free if I want
it.'

I did as he said, not without effort, and our
progress gradually became smoother, till he had no
need to speak at all. The only sound now was one
like the gentle simmer of a saucepan away to
port--the lisp of surf I knew it to be--and the
muffled grunt of the rowlocks. I broke the
silence once to say 'It's very shallow.' I had
touched sand with my right scull.

'Don't talk,' said Davies.

About half an hour passed, and then he added
sounding to his other occupations. 'Plump' went
the lead at regular intervals, and he steered with
his hip while pulling in the line. Very little of
it went out at first, then less still. Again I
struck bottom, and, glancing aside, saw weeds.
Suddenly he got a deep cast, and the dinghy, freed
from the slight drag which shallow water always
inflicts on a small boat, leapt buoyantly forward.
At the same time, I knew by boils on the smooth
surface that we were in a strong tideway.

For a hundred yards or more I bent to my sculls
and made her fly. Davies was getting six fathom
casts, till, just as suddenly as it had deepened,
the water shoaled--ten feet, six, three, one--the
dinghy grounded.

'Good!' said Davies. 'Back her off! Pull your
right only.' The dinghy spun round with her bow to
N.N.W. 'Both arms together! Don't you worry about
the compass now; just pull, and listen for orders.
There's a tricky bit coming.'

He put aside the chart, kicked the lead under
the seat, and, kneeling on the dripping coils of
line, sounded continuously with the butt-end of
the boat-hook, a stumpy little implement, notched
at intervals of a foot, and often before used for
the same purpose. All at once I was aware that a
check had come, for the dinghy swerved and doubled
like a hound ranging after scent.

'Stop her,' he said, suddenly, 'and throw out
the grapnel.'

I obeyed and we brought up, swinging to a
slight current, whose direction Davies verified by
the compass. Then for half a minute he gave
himself up to concentrated thought. What struck
me most about him was that he never for a moment
strained his eyes through the fog; a useless
exercise (for five yards or so was the radius of
our vision) which, however, I could
not help indulging in, while I rested. He made
up his mind, and we were off again, straight and
swift as an arrow this time. and in water deeper
than the boat-hook. I could see by his face that
he was taking some bold expedient whose issue hung
in the balance ... Again we touched mud, and the
artist's joy of achievement shone in his eyes.
Backing away, we headed west. and for the first
time he began to gaze into the fog.

'There's one!' he snapped at last. 'Easy all!'

A boom, one of the usual upright saplings,
glided out of the mist. He caught hold of it, and
we brought up.

'Rest for three minutes now,' he said. 'We're
in fairly good time.'

It was 11.10. I ate some biscuits and took a
nip of whisky while Davies prepared for the next
stage.

We had reached the eastern outlet of Memmert
Balje, the channel which runs east and west behind
Juist Island, direct to the south point of
Memmert. How we had reached it was
incomprehensible to me at the time, but the reader
will understand by comparing my narrative with the
dotted line on the chart. I add this brief
explanation, that Davies's method had been to
cross the channel called the Buse Tief, and strike
the other side of it at a point well
south of the outlet of the Memmert Balje
(in view of the northward set of the ebb-tide),
and then to drop back north and feel his way to
the outlet. The check was caused by a deep
indentation in the Itzendorf Flat; a
cul-de-sac, with a wide mouth, which
Davies was very near mistaking for the Balje
itself. We had no time to skirt dents so deep as
that; hence the dash across its mouth with the
chance of missing the upper lip altogether, and of
either being carried out to sea (for the slightest
error was cumulative) or straying fruitlessly
along the edge.

The next three miles were the most critical of
all. They included the 'watershed', whose length
and depth were doubtful; they included, too, the
crux of the whole passage, a spot where the
channel forks, our own branch continuing west, and
another branch diverging from it north-westward.
We must row against time, and yet we must
negotiate that crux. Add to this that the current
was against us till the watershed was crossed;
that the tide was just at its most baffling stage,
too low to allow us to risk short cuts, and too
high to give definition to the banks of the
channel; and that the compass was no aid whatever
for the minor bends. 'Time's up,' said Davies,
and on we went. I was hugging the comfortable
thought that we should now have booms on our
starboard for the whole distance; on our
starboard, I say, for experience had taught us
that all channels running parallel with the coast
and islands were uniformly boomed on the northern
side. Anyone less confident than Davies would
have succumbed to the temptation of slavishly
relying on these marks, creeping from one to the
other, and wasting precious time. But Davies knew
our friend the 'boom' and his eccentricities too
well; and preferred to trust to his sense of
touch, which no fog in the world could impair. If
we happened to sight one, well and good, we should
know which side of the channel we were on. But
even this contingent advantage he deliberately
sacrificed after a short distance, for he crossed
over to the south or unboomed side and
steered and sounded along it, using the ltzendorf
Flat as his handrail, so to speak. He was
compelled to do this, he told me afterwards, in
view of the crux, where the converging lines of
booms would have involved us in irremediable
confusion. Our branch was the southern one, and
it followed that we must use the southern bank,
and defer obtaining any help from booms until sure
we were past that critical spot.

For an hour we were at the extreme strain, I of
physical exertion, he of mental. I could not get
into a steady swing, for little checks were
constant. My right scull was for ever skidding on
mud or weeds, and the backward suck of shoal water
clogged our progress. Once we were both of us out
in the slime tugging at the dinghy's sides; then
in again, blundering on. I found the fog
bemusing, lost all idea of time and space, and
felt like a senseless marionette kicking and
jerking to a mad music without tune or time. The
misty form of Davies as he sat with his right arm
swinging rhythmically forward and back, was a
clockwork figure as mad as myself, but didactic
and gibbering in his madness. Then the boat-hook
he wielded with a circular sweep began to take
grotesque shapes in my heated fancy; now it was
the antenna of a groping insect, now the crank of
a cripple's selfpropelled perambulator, now the
alpenstock of a lunatic mountaineer, who sits in
his chair and climbs and climbs to some phantom
'watershed'. At the back of such mind as was left
me lodged two insistent thoughts: 'we must hurry
on,' 'we are going wrong.' As to the latter, take
a link-boy through a London fog and you will
experience the same thing: he always goes the way
you think is wrong. 'We're rowing back!'
I remember shouting to Davies once, having become
aware that it was now my left scull which splashed
against obstructions. 'Rubbish,' said Davies.
'I've crossed over'; and I relapsed.

By degrees I returned to sanity, thanks to
improved conditions. It is an ill wind that blows
nobody good, and the state of the tide, though it
threatened us with total failure, had the
compensating advantage that the lower it fell the
more constricted and defined became our channel;
till the time came when the compass and boat-hook
were alike unnecessary, because our hand-rail, the
muddy brink of the channel, was visible to the
eye, close to us; on our right hand always now,
for the crux was far behind, and the northern side
was now our guide. All that remained was to press
on with might and main ere the bed of the creek
dried.

What a race it was! Homeric, in effect; a
struggle of men with gods, for what were the gods
but forces of nature personified'? If the God of
the Falling Tide did not figure in the Olympian
circle he is none the less a mighty divinity.
Davies left his post. and rowed stroke. Under
our united efforts the dinghy advanced in
strenuous leaps, hurling miniature-rollers on the
bank beside us. My palms, seasoned as they were,
were smarting with watery blisters. The pace was
too hot for my strength and breath.

'I must have a rest,' I gasped.

'Well, I think we're over it,' said Davies.

We stopped the dinghy dead, and he stabbed over
the side with the boat-hook. It passed gently
astern of us, and even my bewildered brain took in
the meaning of that.

'Three feet and the current with us.
Well over it,' he said. 'I'll paddle on
while you rest and feed.'

It was a few minutes past one and we still, as
he calculated. had eight miles before us,
allowing for bends.

'But it's a mere question of muscle,' he said.

I took his word for it, and munched at tongue
and biscuits. As for muscle, we were both in hard
condition. He was fresh, and what distress I felt
was mainly due to spasmodic exertion culminating
in that desperate spurt. As for the fog. it had
more than once shown a faint tendency to lift,
growing thinner and more luminous, in the manner
of fogs, always to settle down again, heavy as a
quilt.

Note the spot marked 'second rest'
(approximately correct. Davies says) and the
course of the channel from that point westward.
You will see it broadening and deepening to the
dimensions of a great river, and finally merging
in the estuary of the Ems. Note, too, that its
northern boundary, the edge of the now uncovered
Nordland Sand, leads, with one interruption
(marked A),
direct to Memmert, and is boomed
throughout. You will then understand why Davies
made so light of the rest of his problem.
Compared with the feats he had performed, it was
child's play, for he always had that visible
margin to keep touch with if he chose, or to
return to in case of doubt. As a matter of
fact--observe our dotted line--he made two daring
departures from it, the first purely to save time,
the second partly to save time and partly to avoid
the very awkward spot marked A, where a creek with
booms and a little delta of its own interrupts the
even bank. During the first of these
departures--the shortest but most brilliant--he
let me do the rowing, and devoted himself to the
niceties of the course; during the second, and
through both the intermediate stages, he rowed
himself, with occasional pauses to inspect the
chart. We fell into a long, measured stroke, and
covered the miles rapidly, scarcely exchanging a
single word till, at the end of a long pull
through vacancy, Davies said suddenly;